This week an incredibly insightful article from the Cultural Property News (whose newsletter I would also highly recommend signing up to) appeard.
In the article, St John Simpson, the Senior Curator of the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum, sheds an interesting light on the ILLICID report, repatriation of Afghani cultural heritage, Daesh and remote-archaeology. Importantly, he draws attention to the disparities between the (mis)representation of the illicit circulation of art and the hard facts. St John approaches the subject with a clear, pragmatic mind, and uses the vast knowledge which he holds at his fingertips to decipher and recount the actual, current state of play in the world.
Dr Simpson states, "The key fact about the ILLICID report is that out of the sample of the 356,500 objects that they say they looked at, only 0.1% were identified by them as genuine pieces from Syria or Iraq."
I would highly recommend reading this refreshing piece, a link to which can be found below
